Nocturnal Talks

What’s the time? Late night? Good. Stop everything you are doing. Go to your terrace. Pity you don’t have one. If you have, forget whatever you were doing. Go to your terrace. Take one bed sheet, one pillow with you. Also, the most important thing: one transistor. Also, don’t take your mobile with you. So go with only one electronic instrument. The Radio.

Clean the roof with a broom. Sprinkle some water so that the heat of the day is soaked up and vaporises into the sky. The sky which has stars. Dark night but shining stars. The word romantic is for gays. The night with stars is just breathtaking. Look at the sky. Give a sigh. Smile. Lay out the bed sheet. Now lie down. Adjust the pillow so that you can see direct up. Settled? Good. Now turn on the transistor. It will be #win if the transistor is old and held up using rubber bands. Now start searching for Vividh Bharti. Don’t rush. Enjoy the noise in between the stations. What a lovely sound it is! The dials doing something electronically, the turning spring inside, searching for the right frequency, with sudden loudness trying to say something to you.

Tuned? Nice. Now listen to old Hindi songs. And imagine. From Devanand and Nootan coming down from the once open Qutub Minar, to older Talat Mahmood songs. From Hemant Kumar’s ‘Tum Pukaar Lo’ via Lata Mangeshkar’s ‘Lag Ja Gale K fir yeh haseen raat ho na ho’ or ‘Rasik balma’ to Kishore Kumar’s ‘Woh sham kuchh ajeeb thi, yeh shaam bhi ajeeb hai…’ Keep staring the beauty of the stars of the coldish silent night. Try to hear some sine-wave horn sound in the distance away. Smile. Relive old memories with the brilliant lyrics. Keep looking at the stars. They move. They say a lot to you. Those starry nights. Amazing.

Now savour these moments. I’ll be silent for some time.

Now while its getting further late, close your eyes. Keep the music on though. Smile more. Try to remember her. Smile again. Don’t regret what you didn’t do. Don’t think what you will do. Just stay silent, keeping your eyes closed. And sleep.

Now if you are in a saner city, around 5 AM in the morning, you will hear some Aarti (not RT) going on nearby. Smile. Ruffle your hair and get up. Try to hear from where this sound is coming. Smile. Stay there for some time, yawning.

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Wooow it sounds all so picturesque.Certainly these are the little things in life which can bring you immense joy.We seriously need to ditch technology from to time and surrender ourselves to nature and old songs…well old is and will alwez be gold 🙂